Trump hits Starmer with parting shot over Iran

Donald Trump issued a parting shot at Sir Keir Starmer after the Prime Minister announced his resignation.

The US said Sir Keir had been “hurt very badly” by popular discontent after he failed to join the war against Iran, and suggested that it may have even contributed to him being driven from office.

Mr Trump once considered the Prime Minister a close ally, but their relationship soured after Sir Keir refused to host US bombers on the Chagos Island’s Diego Garcia base for strikes against Iran in February.

From that point, the president publicly vented his frustration at the Prime Minister on several occasions.

On Monday, hours after Sir Keir resigned outside No 10, Mr Trump described him as a “lovely man” before attacking his record in government.

“He’s a very nice man, I mean, sort of a friend of mine … [but] he was not good to us with Nato,” the president said, speaking to reporters at the White House.

Sir Keir later allowed the US to launch strikes on Iran from Diego Garcia from March 1, the day after Mr Trump attacked Tehran. Nevertheless, the damage had already been done to his relationship with the president.

“Now that was a bad move that hurt him badly,” Mr Trump continued. “But I mean, I wish him well.”

The president went on to repeat his regular criticism that Sir Keir was “not Winston Churchill”, before claiming the British public had been angered by his efforts to stay out of the war.

Mr Trump has previously compared the Labour leader to Neville Chamberlain, the former prime minister whose disastrous policy of appeasement towards the Nazis culminated in the Second World War.

“Starmer wasn’t there, and you know what, the people of the UK did not like it that he wasn’t there,” Mr Trump said on Monday.

“Starmer said no, Starmer said worse than no. He said, ‘We’ll be there as soon as you win’ ... This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with, that I can tell you.”

Mr Trump went on to suggest he would refuse to defend “stupid” Nato allies after they sought to stay out of his war, which caused global economic upheaval after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for oil shipments.

Describing the conflict as “small potatoes”, he said of Nato: “They say, ‘No, we’d rather not help.’ Stupid thing to say, because we can say that to them if we want.”

Mr Trump also criticised Sir Keir’s domestic politics, including his policies on immigration, crime and net zero, repeating his frequent call for Britain to resume drilling in the North Sea.

The Prime Minister is “really messing up energy … he’s really hurt himself very, very badly”, he said.

“You have windmills all over the place. In the meantime, you have the North Sea oil, and they won’t let anybody drill. It’s one of the great fields in the world.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]